Reid, Bob

It has been barely two days since Governor Jerry Brown gave his "State of the State" message reaching out to both the Republicans in the Legislature and the citizens of California on the tough love message he gave on California's budget crisis when the party of NO, The Republicans, said that the budget was Brown's problem and he is on his own.

This means the Republicans in the Assembly and the Senate will not vote to join the democrats in placing on the June ballot the measures to extend the already existing tax measures to complete the Governor's budget proposal. Gov. Jerry Brown chided Republicans for not having an alternative plan. GOP leaders said that proposing a balanced budget is the governor's job, not theirs.

The Headline in Saturday's Sacramento Bee was "Blue Shield Spurns a Delay." That tells it all. California's brand new Insurance Commissioner, Dave Jones, on his first day in office asked Blue Shield to delay for 60 days a planned rate hike. They came back and said essentially to the people of California by their response to Jones; no way, the heck with you, we are going ahead with the rate increases. Blue Shield officials believe their rate increases are appropriate, said spokesman Johnny Wong in that same Bee article."We are moving forward with the March 1st rate increase.

It seems appropriate on the 4th of July weekend to write about gays and lesbians serving openly in the military. Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) was a result of the Clinton Administration's failed effort to pass a repeal of the statute. There was strong opposition back then led by Senator Sam Nunn D-Georgia. He was a powerful member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the major roadblock to repeal. This resulted in the terrible law that forced men and women to stay in the military closet in order to serve their country.

Former President Jimmy Carter had it right when he said at the time Clinton was trying to act on a campaign promise to repeal the law. Carter said "Sign an executive order and then force it to a vote in the Congress." Show some guts he was saying. It most likely would have failed but it would have forced the issue.

Proposition 14 on the June 8 ballot would make two dramatic changes to the system of elections in California.

1. In the primary election, state and congressional (but not presidential) candidates from all political parties would compete together in a single open primary. All candidates from all political parties would appear on the same ballot.

2. In the general election, only candidates who finished first or second in the open primary would compete against each other in a run-off — even if those candidates were from the same party.

The proponents failed to make their case so they would have gone the initiative route, which requires only money to get signatures and no public vetting. They were spared this task by the deal that former State Senator Abel Maldonado made with the Democrat majority for his vote on the budget. The Legislature then put this proposal on the ballot.